ABSTRACT
During the twenty-year period from 1813 to 1832, the entire process of the manufacture of fine woolen cloth was mechanized in the United States. The objectives behind mechanizing these processes were twofold. The first objective, the more obvious of the two, was to increase productivity and reduce wage costs. The second objective was to gain much more uniformity in the finished product. Wool sorters were among the highest paid hands in any woolen factory. Carding and fulling were the only water powered processes in 1815; by 1825, spinning, weaving, and finishing were all operated by water. Power looms came to the woolen industry in New England in the mid to late 1820s, and apparently came primarily through the agency of one man—William H. Howard of Worcester and later, Philadelphia. The final finishing processes were more modernized by mechanization. The level of mechanization of raising, dubbing, timming, or gigging is a matter about which today there is some dispute.
